Abstract
For unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), their motor and camera are rigid components that are most likely causing damage in the event of a collision. Therefore, in the research of UAVs collision simulation, establishing accurate motor and camera FE models is the key step. Kinetic material tests were conducted for 7075 aluminum alloy, and an accurate material model was obtained. A test of motor and camera strike on plates was developed, and the dynamic response of the plates was obtained to verify the numerical method of UAV motor and camera strike on plates. Based on these, accurate FE models of motor and camera were established. In addition, the motor and camera were divided into element models with different sizes, and the influence of element size on calculation accuracy and efficiency was investigated. It is indicated that when the average size of the motor grid is less than 1.25 mm and the average size of the camera grid is less than 1 mm, a good balance could be achieved between calculation accuracy and calculation efficiency. Through comprehensive consideration, a 1.25 mm and a 1 mm mesh model were selected for the motor and the camera, respectively, to establish their finite element model which was then employed in the simulation of motor and camera strike on plates. The simulation results showed that the strain-time curve peak of the aluminum plate impacted by the motor had an error of 9.5% with the experimental result and that by the camera had an error of 9.7% with the experimental result. At the same time, the influences of speed and collision angle were investigated. It is indicated that the greater collision angle of the motor, the smaller collision angle of the camera, and the greater impact speed of both cause greater damage to the aluminum plate. The FE modelling method and collision simulation method of motor and camera proposed in this paper can greatly save the resources for testing the UAV performance through the practical structural strength test, especially for light and small UAVs.
Highlights
Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are widely used in many fields, such as recreation [1], emergency rescue [2, 3], environment monitoring [4], power line inspection [5], aerial mapping [6], military defense [7, 8], and agricultural plant protection [9] today, with sales expected to 82.1 billion US dollars by 2025 [10]
Motivated by the above facts, this paper investigates the accurate Finite element (FE) modelling problem for motors and cameras of light and small UAVs with collision conditions
The establishment of accurate finite element models of motors and cameras is vital for establishing an accurate model of the whole UAV when studying UAV collision problems
Summary
Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are widely used in many fields, such as recreation [1], emergency rescue [2, 3], environment monitoring [4], power line inspection [5], aerial mapping [6], military defense [7, 8], and agricultural plant protection [9] today, with sales expected to 82.1 billion US dollars by 2025 [10]. It is necessary to analyze the collision performance of light and small UAVs. And reference [36] pointed out that the densest and heaviest parts, which pose the biggest risk of penetration upon impact, are the motors, battery pack(s), and the camera as a typical payload. To the best of our knowledge, typical payload collision problems for light and small UAVs with accurate Finite element (FE) models for motors and cameras have not been considered widely. Motivated by the above facts, this paper investigates the accurate FE modelling problem for motors and cameras of light and small UAVs with collision conditions. An air cannon system was designed, and impact tests were conducted to simulate the high-speed collision of UAVs and assess the resulting damage. An explicit FE method was adopted to build the FE models of UAV motor and camera [37], and the accuracy of models was verified by a comparison between numerical and experimental results.
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